Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Here in California, we are accustomed to living in a system with a lot of direct democracy, a system where voters can vote on nearly everything, matters vital and trivial. We think it is only normal that we can overrule our representatives in the Legislature and even our Governors. This November, we'll be voting on at least 10 statewide propositions -- and maybe more. That's how we live. By and large, our more successful politicians try to anticipate and conform their actions to policy preferences bubbling among constituents. The ability to meld popular enthusiasms with workable policies is the job of a politician. Otherwise we get terrible law (like the anti-tax rules of 1978's Prop. 13) and many pols lose their jobs.

In Britain, there have only been three all-country referendums since 1975: the first on joining what became the European Union, which passed; the next on adopting something rather like the "instant run-off" voting that we use in San Francisco, which failed; and then the recent vote for Brexit, the vote to leave the EU. Brits don't do this very often.

Compared with what we have in California -- for better or worse -- Brits have a much more attenuated democracy. Without a written constitution, all power resides in Parliament; the party that controls the House rules. Brits have elections for Parliament, but the politicians don't seem to very closely mirror the sentiments of their electors. In the Brexit vote, only 24 percent of the members of Parliament came out for leaving the EU. This suggests that probably more than half of them were out of tune with their constituents. Pointing this out is not to fault them as individuals for failing at some ideal representative function; it is merely to point this is far from unusual in British democracy.

In general elections for Parliament, the regular mode in which British voters express their democratic druthers, it is possible to get quite distorted outcomes that don't look very democratic (small "d") from over here. I've grabbed some charts from the Wikipedia on the 2015 election. Note how little correspondence there is between the percentage of the vote each of the parties won and the number of seats that vote translated into. In particular, the over 12 percent of all voters who picked UKIP (the anti-immigrant party) and got one lousy seat for their pains likely were thoroughly pissed. This can happen in a multi-party system where the victory goes to whoever claws out a plurality within a geographical constituency.

The voters' preference for Brexit seems to have thrown British democracy into a tizzy. Both big parties, Labour and the governing Conservatives, are embroiled in unforeseen leadership struggles; Scotland and Northern Ireland which voted "Remain" are threatening secession; and all this while everyone is trying to absorb the shock of possible major economic and social rearrangements.

Don’t trash democracy or the voters. Where complicated choices are involved — and Brexit defines complexity — leaders in representative democracies need the guts to make hard calls and submit themselves to voters afterward. They should not use referendums purely to evade responsibility.

[He attributes the Brexit victory to racism.] ... Responsible officials should always be ready to denounce racism. But their job description also requires them to provide realistic policy answers to quell the rage. If center-right and center-left politicians fail to do this, their parties will remain suspect.

That is, in Dionne's view, the kind of not very democratic democracy Britain employs only works if smart leadership is in place to rescue a volatile electorate from itself.

Yet it does seem obvious that if large segments of the electorate felt, accurately, that they were more fairly represented, they might be less volatile, less inclined to throw the system into tipsy gyrations as they just have.

And yes, our electorate here also needs to feel represented, at least in substantial majorities, or our institutions won't work either.

5 comments:

Even more making Britain not look much like a democracy, when the vote didn't go the way the establishment wanted, they immediately began to suggest the vote was just a suggestion... didn't mean they 'had' to do it. They came up with some people looking for EU online afterward, signifying that must've all been those who voted for Brexit. And one guy was widely seen saying he had no idea his vote would matter (keep the faith, it looks like it won't lol).

The US is vastly different in how we accept the results of elections-- even those we despise. We might submit it again in the future but we don't immediately try to overturn results... although some of might wish that had happened when Bush won the Electoral college only because of the Supreme Court intervening when he lost the popular vote by millions. It's not though how we fly and when I look at the alternative, which is ignore what you didn't like or try to undo it right away, I'd prefer our system. Maybe when it's humans, there's no perfect system...

Nice rundown, Jan. Very fair minded, as you always are. I'm thinking about the wider implications of Brexit. If we submit to trade agreements with EU, this could rob of us much of our sovereignty, much as NAFTA has and much as TPP threatens to do. And where is the Queen? Haven't heard a peep.

The Queen is not above politics, not at all. Her absence right now is worthy of note. I don't idealize her or the monarchy. The English would be better off without the illusion of greatness that having a royal family fosters in them. I keep modifying my views (Sounds better than saying I keep changing my mind) as I learn more about the Brexit mess and its implications.

What is this blog for?

This San Francisco purveyor of graffiti has it right. When times are bleak -- when country and planet sink under the barely restrained sway of greed, raw power, and fear -- it's time to restate what matters.

I write here to preserve and kindle hope for a national and global turn toward multi-racial, economically egalitarian, gender non-constricting, woman affirming, and peace choosing democracy that preserves the habitability of earth for all. There's a big order -- but what else is there to do but struggle for this? Not much.

Topics range from the minuscule to the transcendent to the global, from dire to delightful. I am not an optimist, but I refuse to allow myself to wallow within the easy bias that everything is going to always be awful. Good also happens; love lives too.

I've been yammering here about activism, politics, history, racism and other occasional horrors and pleasures since 2005. I intend to continue as long as the opportunity exists. In this time, that means activism and chronicling resistance. Perhaps it always has, one way and another.

About Me

I'm a progressive political activist who runs trails and climbs mountains whenever any are available. I've had the privilege to work for justice in Central America (Nicaragua and El Salvador), in South Africa, in the fields of California with the United Farmworkers Union, and in the cities and schools of my own country. I'm a Christian of the Episcopalian flavor; we think and argue a lot. For work, I've done a bit of it all: run an old fashioned switch-board; remodeled buildings and poured concrete; edited and published periodicals, reports and books; and organized for electoral campaigns. Will work for justice.